


better luck next time!

by obscurityofphylum



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Drug Abuse, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, Klaus Hargreeves Deserves Better, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:55:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25393459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obscurityofphylum/pseuds/obscurityofphylum
Summary: klaus had a bad trip for the first time when he was fifteen.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 58





	better luck next time!

klaus had a bad trip for the first time when he was fifteen. 

he promised himself he'd come right home at three. so, as soon as the coast was clear, klaus was sliding through his open window and onto the fire escape next to his bedroom. the air was cold, and for a second he was grateful he didn't still share a room with ben like when they were little. good old reggie hargreeves, grouping up the kids who had nightmares and stuffing them all in the same bedroom. 

it was midnight when he dropped to the floor with a soft thud, and began briskly walking to the address his friends had given him. if his father knew he had friends outside the academy he'd never hear the end of it, about security breaches and trusting people n the outside. klaus didn't care.

it wasn't like he really had friends inside the academy anyway. luther thought he was useless, and diego thought he was annoying. for allison, it depended on the day. sometimes, she'd paint his nails and they'd read celebrity magazines, and other days she slammed the door in his face. ben was too wrapped up in his books these days. 

he liked being the only member of the academy with a social life. sure, they were in magazines and had interviews and public appearances, but people knew him in a way they didn't know the others. reginald controlled every bit of the academy's press, and they were just masked children with extraordinary abilities to the outside world. but when klaus was five blocks away in the dodgy part of town, he was his own person. people knew his name, and not just from magazines or crimes. 

that was his only superiority over the others: he knew the outside world. and even though he likes the fact that he's the underestimated smart one, part of him fears for the day when his siblings are launched into the real world, unprepared and doe-eyed at the thought of being their own person. 

he heard the music booming from the house before he even turned onto the street. he walked up the steps, his breath fogging the air in front of him from the chill. inside, the house was illuminated in different colored lights. there were people dancing, holding cups of various alcoholic beverages. sweat and marijuana smoke wafted into the air and hung over the atmosphere like a thick cloud. 

everyone there was much older than him. it was mostly college kids, which would've made him nervous if he were sober, but instead he was indifferent. if there was one thing he was proud of himself for, it was how well he was adapted to the world outside of the academy. hell, put luther or diego in this situation and they'd turn tail and run. they wouldn't know how to handle all the things that made klaus feel alive.

one of his friends slung an arm around him, and a little ring of them talked for a while. he kept up his composure very well, dodging questions about the academy and making crude jokes that the others laughed at, and he knew his father would cane him for if he ever uttered them in the house. he was insanely grateful he had been sober enough to remember to change out of his uniform before leaving the academy. 

at some point, somebody had handed him a little white tablet that he absentmindedly flipped into his mouth, feeling it dissolve into powdery residue on his tongue. nothing happened at first, and he kept talking and joking. 

a boy with tan skin and multicolored hair sauntered over to him, and they made small talk for a little while. his voice was practically a purr, and klaus was too far gone to reject the pills that were offered in the boy's palm. he swallowed them and let the boy lead him upstairs.

he thinks it's the parents of the house's bed. he giggles at that slightly, his words slurring as the boy breathed down his neck. there was a hand on his throat, constricting his airway and making him feel fuzzy and lightheaded. he didn't mind one bit, practically humming at the feeling of the boy (who he still didn't even know the name of) sinking his teeth into klaus's shoulder. 

klaus could feel the haze beginning to fade, which was odd because he had taken so much. it had only been half an hour since his last pill. why was he already falling? the boy on top of him was oblivious, his hands ghosting over klaus's waist. klaus grabbed his wrist, pushing away the hand that was currently tracing the line of his boxers eagerly.

he muttered something that sounded vaguely like the words 'i can't' but the blood rushing in his ears was much too loud. when he met the eyes of the boy who was still on top of him, but now staring at him questioningly, the boy's face started morphing into different animals. 

neon liquid was dripping down the walls. klaus's skin was crawling. there were bugs all over the mattress, climbing into his ears and burrowing into his eyes. 

his friends had always warned him about the mythical 'bad batch' but he never really paid much attention to it until now. he vaguely wondered if he was dying. he vaguely wondered if he really cared. 

his breathing was coming out in stuttered pants, and he rolled off the bed and away from the boy. he was surprised he didn't collapse, but his legs were made of jelly as he walked along the narrow hallway. nobody acknowledged him. there were only a few couples sucking each other's faces off that scattered the few bedrooms that didn't have their doors shut. 

oh, and the ghosts.

there was a little boy whose skin was charred to the bone, his face melted away only to reveal eye sockets and eyeballs that bulged out unnaturally from the lack of skin and tissue. next to him stood a man with his jaw hanging loosely by threads of muscle, his mouth flapping obscenely as he tried to scream for help. the noise that came out of his mutilated face was more of a bloody gurgle. there was a shotgun bullet lodged just below his chin. klaus looked away, feeling his stomach turn.

usually, the drugs got rid of the ghosts. but as he slammed the bathroom door shut and locked it behind him, the screams of the dead were deafening. he slid down the door, his head in his hands. 

everything was too loud. there were monsters breathing down his back, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up in fright. 

he stared down at his hands. his skin was green, and then it was blue, and then it was pale pink again. his freckles were making shapes. there was a ghost woman in the bathtub with her throat slashed open. she was staring straight at him. his heart jumped into his throat. 

klaus hauled himself to his feet, using the bathroom counter to help him up. his head was spinning from the slight movement and before he knew it he was throwing up into the toilet, nausea plaguing his senses. he was spilling his guts into somebody else's toilet (ew) but the disgust was distant, and he was too numb to really care. his throat burned the way it always did after he raided his dad's liquor cabinet, and his stomach was still doing somersaults. 

it faintly reminded him of when he was little and had the flu, the way grace's hand patted his back as he gagged and cried. the way ben had brought his own stuffed animals to klaus's room and snuggled himself into klaus's bed, refusing to leave his side. back when they were little and still innocent, still so compassionate and caring for each other. now, at the ripe old age of fifteen and seven months, klaus wasn't sure that the others would even bother to mourn him if he died. 

what felt like an eternity passed before klaus was able to recover a bit, breathing in gulps of oxygen that seemed to escape his lungs much too fast. the room was spinning again, and the flower wallpaper was crawling with beetles and gnashing teeth, gleaming and ready to devour him. he threw up some more.

when he finally managed to stand up again, he rubbed his eyes hard and braced himself against the counter. after a couple minutes of trying to locate the faucet through his warped vision, he turned on the sink and splashed some water on his face. he was careful to avoid scratching himself with the nearly foot-long talons that had grown in place of his fingernails. 

the water was cold and scalding at the same time and klaus had never been so grateful for something in his life. it was odd, his skin was overheated yet the scorching water felt like pure relief on his burning flesh. if he concentrated on it too much, the water would be ice cold and feel like needles jabbed into each of his pores, making his teeth chatter. 

he cupped his hands and drank a couple little mouthfuls, feeling the liquid soothe the insistent burn in the back of his throat. hell, it tasted exactly what bathroom sink water always tastes like, but to klaus it was the oasis in a hundred mile desert. 

he splashed one last handful onto his face, feeling the water tickle his face and drip down the bridge of his nose. it stung his face, sickeningly sweet and electrifying, waittresssing his overworking senses. his head buzzed as he straightened up. 

the mirror was the only thing in the room that wasn't bleeding technicolor hallucinations. instead, all he saw was himself, his messy hair and glassy eyes. 

and twenty or so corpses standing shoulder to shoulder in the tiny bathroom, staring back at him. he screamed. the sound was muffled by the numbing music on the other side of the door. 

their cold hands reached out to grab him, and he could feel the chill of their dead fingers wrapping around his boney shoulders. goosebumps rose on his skin and he stumbled back, hitting the ground. the side of his head slammed against the bathtub, where the woman with the bloody throat was still staring at him. 

he cursed in pain, gritting his teeth. he delicately raised a hand to his face, his fingers damp with blood when he pulled away. it was trickling from his nose and over his lips, staining his teeth a diluted pink. it dripped onto his clothes and onto the tile floor. 

klaus screamed again. nobody heard him. for a brief moment, it reminded him of home. he pushed the sinking, miserable feeling back down a little further. just like he always did. it was permanently stuck in his gut, hidden behind a wall of jokes and laughter and pills. 

his eyelids were getting heavy and the blood on the tiles was an array of rainbow hues. the blood on his face was smeared on his lips and chin, and it was drying beneath his fingernails. he contemplated getting up to wash off, but he knew he couldn't stand up again if he wanted to. his legs were in a far-off place. 

slowly, and then all at once, sleep came to him. it was like watching a panther from the side of your vision, watching it creep closer and closer. it pounced on him, taking him far from the whirlwind of colorful hallucinations and into the heavy darkness. 

he slept so long that when he finally woke up the sun was peering through the tiny window in the bathroom. klaus staggered to his feet, clutching his stomach to suppress the nausea that was already swirling inside of him again.

he crept over the swarms of drunken, passed out bodies as he could, stepping over arms and legs and clumsily parkouring over hungover college students. the few he woke gave him sluggish groans of irritation that he could barely hear from the headache forming in his brain. 

as he stumbled down the steps and onto the street, he noticed the boy from last night. his memories were vague, but the boy gave him a nod of acknowledgement over the cigarette he was lighting, leaning against the porch banister. klaus smiled slightly, more out of politeness than anything. (hell, he'd be surprised if any of the smiles or laughter that had came from him in the past two years were legitimate.)

the walk home wasn't nearly as cold, but he felt like a horse wearing blinders. he could only see in front of him, and his vision doubled if he tried to read any street signs. a small part of him panicked. what if he was like this forever? what if he had messed up his ability to read with a couple stupid pills? the majority of him didn't care much, being illiterate would be one more giant middle finger to reginald, and so he kept walking. 

even when klaus promised himself he'd be home by three, it was well passed seven when klaus staggered through the academy doors. 

"number four, i demand to know where you have been this instant." his father's voice boomed from the kitchen. it was like he had x-ray vision or something. klaus ignored it, trudging up the stairs.

his head was pounding, and despite his feigned indifference and usual rebellion, there were still alarm bells ringing deep inside of him. he knew the punishments for this wouldn't be good, but he was too tired to care. his bones aches and his eye sockets were reverberating in his skull, making his teeth chatter.

"number four!" reginald yelled again. klaus could practically see his siblings all sitting at their spots (except for the empty places of himself and five, respectfully) trying to act oblivious and shooting each other glances across the table. 

because nobody ever stood up to reginald, and especially nobody stood up for klaus. why would they stand up for him? he was exactly what they'd called him: useless, lazy, dumb. they just pretended not to notice and drowned their fucking pancakes in syrup.

that's how it's always been, and how it always will be, klaus thought as he turned on the bathtub faucet. the water was cold and scalding at the same time, and klaus had never hated anything more in his entire life.


End file.
